I decided to follow the idea’s over on TMP, here and here , and on the blog: Welcome to lazarus with the creation of horde bases using HO scale model railway civilian figures. Armed with the idea, I went off on my travels to find some on line.
I managed to bag a set of 100 direct from china, I figured that it was better to get the prepainted versions instead of the unpainted lot, since they’d be easier and quicker to paint up and sort (plus getting 100 figures painted fast with the time I have is near on an impossible feat at the moment!) All in all I got them for £3.49 ($5.32 US) and it took 10 days to get from the other side of china to the UK! I love the internet for that, 20 years ago that kind of thing would have been impossible to think you’d be able to do that, but I guess the 21st century is pretty sci-fi in lots of ways!
So, within minutes of getting the package through the door, I was busy sticking them onto 2p pieces as lovely little zombie swarms. They stuck firm with a little superglue and once this was done, all I needed to do was wash them in a few washes of browns, blacks and reds. I didn’t want to spend much time making them pretty, a faceless, ragged and dirty mob of the hordes of the dead is what was needed and they looked fine!
I ended up getting 98 of them used (including some of the seated figures used as a small 1p sized swarm as a few zombies munching on a body!) and they look really good. I recommend if you need a load of cheap zombies, this my friends is the way to do it. The only reservation is that these are scaled at 1/100, true 15mm as I believe. Most of my other zombies are a slight bit bigger, but I can cope with that, from a distance and from a gaming perspective, these are minor things I’m willing to overlook in return for additional zombie troops for my zombie gaming.
Next time i’ll spend a little more time prepping them before I get around to sticking them to the bases, as they tend to have round mould marks on them a lot, but like I said, these are really just a quick and easy test project to see how good they are before buying more, so that I shall bare in mind for the next time. (Plus from a few foot away, you cant see that kind of thing, and they aren’t the prettiest of figures with hardly much detail!) I will say that it’s true that these little plastic figures being ideal for other uses like angry protest mob (which I will be doing next, I need them for scenarios at the start of the infection, with civil unrest and riots etc for my riot cops to beat up!)
If you need some quick and easy hordes of flesheaters for your game, honestly this is a really good plan! Well done to all the HO scale zombie pioneers before me for their ingenuity and savvy wargaming sense!
Peace out…..
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Grinning Skull Design Studios 
Nice job dude. If I was gaming 15mm zeds I would go this route to.
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Thanks! I gotta admit, if I had known about these before, I would have got loads (one can never have too many zombies!) I’ll be trying the 1/87 scale versions next, as I think they’ll scale better this time.
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[…] civilian figures in 1/87, easily available from ebay or model railway suppliers. (check out more HO hordes) There’s a “funny” story attached to me finishing these critters off, which […]
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Did you need to repose any of these or just painted the up?
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Thanks for your comment.
No, I just cleaned them up a little, stuck them on the bases (2p pieces mostly) with a little superglue, then just painted and ink washed. I think the hardest and fiddly bit was finishing the bases with flock and bits!
As far as reposing, there were a few that had bags and suitcases, which had to be snipped off, plus I had a few seated ones that would have been unused but I ended up using them as body munchers knelt down feasting on a victim! It would be easy enough to reposition the figures I think, but they are prone to snapping (but quickly fixed) maybe applying a little heat would help, but not too much as I reckon they might melt!
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[…] Ok, this takes a little more consideration. Zombies are just the same as in any other zombie game, in terms of how they should be treated rule wise, we’ll talk about that in a bit. For me at least, I wouldn’t need to worry, I have shitloads of the little bleeders, well enough to scupper Stan and jacks plans. HO cheap figures make up the bulk of my horde and can be quickly painted and converted for the job, if your short of having epic zombie hordes. […]
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